Memories of Bill Bleach.
Not an evacuee.
Born and raised in Liss Forest.
Joined Battersea Central School at Hawkley in the summer of 1941 and left in the summer of 1944.
At School During the War
The quiet, plodding and ordered life of the rural thirties began to dissolve. Newspapers and wireless sounded sober and grave. German voices were violent and hostile. ARP and gas masks appeared. School air raid shelters were dug. Suddenly on a Sunday morning it was war, but nothing happened.
Then an influx of evacuees.
Adults and children appeared and took up residence in and around the villages. The school was shared with young strangers – locals in the morning, strangers in the afternoon.
The old slow routines were discarded and the enlarged village began to settle to a new and novel existence. Fresh faces – fresh ideas – village and city began to co-exist side by side. The disturbance was unique and seemed permanent. It was quite unlike those previous events that had disturbed village routine on rare occasions.
The change was accepted and the novelty enjoyed. The opportunity to join the incomers, school was embraced with excitement. A new culture was there to be absorbed.
It was a turning point.
Childhood began to vanish.
Serious schooling was to start
A new curriculum was there.
English, Maths, History, Geography, Science, French and so on. All seeming to lead to never ending knowledge.
But first to be dressed. Blazer, caps, tie, and socks to emphasise difference and intention. What we were and what we will be.
Copybooks, textbooks, pens, pencils, paper, satchel, order, discipline and behaviour; all necessary for the everyday running of the school.
While the adult world set about a war that was far away, we children, uniformed and disciplined, set about schooling in a makeshift setting in Hawkley.
By foot, cycle and bus we all descended on this village school now loaned for the duration to Battersea Central. Masters and pupils together set about a routine of school activity, which disregarded all else.
While soldiers trained in local camps and filled village inns at weekends, we continued undistracted with French verbs and art.
The almost weekly reversals that were occurring in the war seemed remote. Invasion was awaited and nearly came. Aerial dogfights were observed and forgotten. Bombs were dropped locally but not in large numbers.
The nearest city to be blitzed was Portsmouth – 20 miles away - but it could all be observed from nearby.
Night bombing raids meant aircraft flying overhead, waking us from sleep. They were both friendly and hostile on their way to differing destinations.
Frustrated Canadians stood guard after Dunkirk and then met a terrible Waterloo at Dieppe later.
During all of these activities, we sang hymns at assembly, listened to interesting and boring lessons, and ate our mid-day meal in a make shift dining room in a loft over a village bake-house that had a faggot oven. We carried out science experiments, did PT, and did woodwork at Lower Green.
We also watched with increasing interest the confident activities of the military. Our school cadet force was formed with Mr. King, our history master, as its Captain. We wore battledress with excitement and assisted the local Home Guard as a signals section.
We tended our school allotments, grew, and harvested vegetables, which may have found their way to our dinner table.
We had an annual sports day and a school cross-country run. Coconut mats were laid out on the green in front of the school for weary runners.
The three houses making up the school vied with each other over a points system awarded for good and bad behaviour and class work. Monitors and prefects kept discipline with masters.
With D-day, the war began to succeed at last. Confident servicemen began to realise that victory would now come.
By sheer luck, I impulsively leave school prematurely and make the jump into adulthood. Through a relation, a post was offered at a naval establishment as a laboratory assistant. I begin to make my own small contribution to the war and in so doing start on the long journey to become an engineer.
College replaces school and with others of similar bent we just kept going.
Coming back to the end of a working life, the village appears unchanged. The school is now a private home but that which was remains distinct. We gather annually to breathe again the country air and see again those little roads and lanes where time has stopped.
Sixty years ago was only yesterday.
Where are all those people, Raine, Lewis, King, Walker, and the rest?
They could not all have disappeared in so short a time.
left Bill in 2003
